24 November 2013

Looking at Lists: eGrim and pGrissel

Today I participated in a three round steamroller of about 13 participants. These are the lists I chose to take:



pGrissel
Pyre Troll
Storm Troll

Fellcaller
Chronicler

Max Stone w/ UA
Max Warders
Max Warders
Max Champions w/ Skaldi
Scouts
Swamp Gobbers


This list is based off the list I mentioned in my first post, mainly it removes the Longrider package and 2 sorcerers and replaces it with Scouts and Skaldi with max Champions.

Longriders are great, but I feel they can be a hard piece to trade with. Many times they don't manage to get their points back before being removed. I find they often outpace the support pieces which is why they die so early, but when I hold them back they are alpha struck and lose their greatest advantage, the charge. Longriders live for the charge and their effectiveness drops significantly when you don't get the first hit.  When they work they're great, but I find that in too many games I can't get them to perform the way I want them to. I may just need more practice with the Longriders, but I feel more comfortable with the Champs for now.

I love Champs with pGrissel, they can be hard to remove and with 2-3 attacks each they don't have problems removing units from the table. I find these guys are hardier than the Longriders, and have similar potential for infantry clearing. The Champs also seem to last for a good portion of the game, while I feel Longriders die fairly early. This is because they don't outpace the Krielstone and are usually at a solid 18-20 ARM. Champs do have less board presence then Longriders though. They are tided up in pods, because of their Defensive Line skill, but in this pGrissel list the 2 Warder units help mitigate this issue. This trio of Warders, Champs, Warders allows for me to move up the board with three very hard to remove units that are capable of cracking most ARM. There is is some issues when you reach the 21+ mark, but Calamity helps. The pods also make the unit more vulnerable then Warders, but not as vulnerable as ARM 17-19 large based cavalry models. The pods allow War Jacks, War Beasts, and Weapon Masters the ability to reach multiple models at once, and these models are the best equipped to deal with our ARM 20. However with proper placement they can be avenged. I really like Champs with pGrissel she does a lot for them and helps mitigate many of their weaknesses, so I can see them in many future list builds.

Scouts had mixed results for me. In my first game they were great. They played a hit-and-run game in and out of a forest, for much of the game. They slowly picked off models from units and even some key solos. If the terrain is right they can be very effective. However at DEF 13 and ARM 13 any form of concealment or stealth mitigation crushes them, like gun mages or the Black 13th. In my third game against eHailey they didn't do much, except die. They weren't able to hit their high DEF and never made it to melee, where gang would have helped. This was the first time I used Scouts with pGrissel, so I'd like to further experiment before entirely writing them off.

I feel this list does have some problems against shooting, sure high ARM units like Warders and Champs do mitigate some of it, but they can be chipped away at first and thus makes them easier to finish off once they are engaged in melee (it also didn't help that the eHailey player gets an extra turn of it). It also suffers against DEF 15 and higher. Calamity is great, but even boosted 6's are not always reliable to get it off. I could definitely see the 5 point slot the scouts occupy being filled with other options. A Bouncer might help to mitigate the vulnerability to shooting. It can protect the Krielstone which becomes more vulnerable in late game, and the Bouncer is quite a hardy beast on its own, sitting at effective ARM 21. Another Pyre or similar shooting light beast is also a possibility, the redundancy is nice, but doesn't help with any problems the list has. Minion solos like Pendrake and/or a Thrullg could also fill the slot and add different utilities, like upkeep removal and knockdown. I think further testing is required, but this list feels close to where I want it.


eGrim - Tier 4 Hunting Party
Mauler
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Impaler
Impaler
Axer

Min Bushwhackers
Scouts
Scouts
Thumper Crew
Thumper Crew

I dropped eGrim once and this tourney and it almost has me wanting to never put him back on a table again, or at least not for a while. I got thrashed. I only managed to kill 3 points of models and score 0 control points. The game was against another Troll player, who is possibly the best in Sydney, and he was playing a pGrissel list that looked something like this:

pGrissel
Mauler
Storm Troll
Storm Troll

Fellcaller

Min Krielstone w/ UA
Min Scatter Gunners w/ UA
Max Warders
Max Warders
Max Burrowers

This might not be completely accurate, as I'm not positive on the Fellcaller. Anyway I was all excited to play ambushing Scouts and most of my list deploying 18" up the board, but wound up flat on my face. Instead of popping feat when I should have I waited. This allowed my opponent to pop his burrowers and charge them into  my line of beasts, thus engaging them and preventing them from shooting. I then spent my next activation clearing them out and was then left to have two units of Warders wipe 5 light beasts of the table on his next turn. The ambushing scouts didn't do much better. They came off the table behind Grissel and only one of managed to hit her, but failed to break armour. They then too were wiped out by his two Storm Trolls who with electro leaps had no problems clearing the two units of Scouts off the board. This left me with Grim's unit, a Mauler, and two Thumpers against his whole army. It didn't go well as I'm sure you imagine.

I screwed up pretty hard and my opponent, like the very competent player he is, punished me to a point where I could not recover. There are two big things I could have done to stop this. First I could have feated the turn before he charged me, thus preventing or mitigating some of the oncoming charges. Second I could have kept only one unit of Scouts for ambushing and advanced deployed the other so they could be used to screen the beasts and prevent the beasts from being engaged. This would have changed the pace and flow of the game, and allowed me to have a chance at winning. I feel that this list is competitive, but I need way more practice with it. I also feel that it does skew too hard towards his feat and a gun line. The list relies to heavily on guns to get the work done, and if something can stop that the list falls apart. That was made all too apparent to me this game. I think this list could be lots of fun and competitive, but I think in the future a non-tier list that approaches eGrim in a more balanced manner would be better suited to tournament play.

Sigh. I guess my quest for a third caster/list continues. If you guys have any questions, comments, or suggestions please comment below or contact me here. Have a good one and may your dice roll tough.






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